Sunday, April 16, 2017

Islam Distinguishing Itself Once Again In Syria

"This forced displacement is a clear violation of international
humanitarian law, and marks yet another sad chapter in the history of
this crisis. The absence of the UN and international community from this
process has left the civilian populations especially vulnerable,
leading to horrific events such as what took place today."

"The UN must not abandon its role in protecting innocent civilians and enforcing international humanitarian laws."

Syrian American Medical Society

"The evacuations were being conducted in
accordance with the agreement reached pursuant to the Four Towns
agreement. ..."

"We call on the
parties to ensure the safety and security of those waiting to be
evacuated. Those responsible for today's attack must be brought to
justice."

U.N.
Secretary-General spokesman

Civil team members try to extinguish the blaze Saturday near Aleppo

The religion of peace has once again pitted the voracious appetite for death between the Alawite (Shiite) regime of Syria's Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian Sunni rebels who have long chafed under the autocratic rule of a minority over the majority of Syrians. Well, the president of Syria is no longer an autocratic, he has soared upward on the scale of dictatorship to become a murderous tyrant. His Western education in Great Britain exposing him to the freedoms and equality there did nothing to wrench him away from sectarian Islamic and tribal infelicities.

The murderous carnage that this leader has inflicted on a country whose ancient infrastructure he has destroyed and whose people he has scattered, tortured and murdered, is far greater than the atrocities committed by the world's currently most-feared terrorist jihadist groups. He, after all, has all the military apparatus of an entire nation at his disposal, along with the considerable assistance of two countries' leaders whose military arsenals are second to none, inclusive of the fighting capabilities of Shiite terrorist militias.

It may have seemed like a practical solution to an interminable problem; to separate Shiites from Sunnis into the areas held by either the regime or the rebels. Religious discrimination, bigotry and hatred consumes people to the extent where they are prepared to inflict death and destruction on those they claim blight the perfection of their own sacred faith; the shift of populations when Pakistan separated from India, resulting in tens of thousands of people slaughtered when Hindus and Muslims unleashed their hatred, a case in point.

Yet the agreement took place between the regime and the rebels as their civil war continued, to give relief to Alawite Shiites under siege by rebel forces, and Sunni civilians whom the regime had long placed under deathly siege conditions. Awaiting transit to safe areas at gathering points for buses to evacuate them from one town into another, explosives ripped through buses leaving them charred and full of dead passengers. Those people had been hoping for rescue from conditions under siege that left them in fear and living with inadequate food, water and medicine for years.

Opposition fighters monitor a bus convoy in Rashidin on Friday, the day before the bombing.

The regime is infamous as its despot orders hundreds of barrel bomb sorties on rebel-held towns and villages weekly, occasionally deviating from just shrapnel, to include chemicals to gas people to death more efficiently. What is to stop the rebel forces from emulating as best they can the atrocities committed by the regime? If not themselves meting out to the hated others mutilating attacks, it can be assumed that the fundamentalist Sunni-brand terrorists making common cause may be responsible.

An estimate of 2.3 million Syrians living under siege led Qatar as an intermediary, along with Iran, to oversee the population shift. While opposition officials accuse the regime and Iran for its use of siege tactics to leave little option but to agree to the exchange of demographics along sectarian lines, the Shiite towns under opposition rule have had to rely on government aid by airdrops because of supply lines controlled by rebel forces for the past two years.

Typically, a car that was rigged with explosives had been packed with supplies meant to feed children. The suicide bomber had portrayed himself in a humanitarian vein; perhaps himself under the impression that he would be sending people directly to Paradise. Of the 126 mostly Shiites who were killed by the bombing, 68 were children, and 55 people were injured. The suicide bomber deliberately targeted children; he spoke directly to them, enticing them with promises of food treats before engaging his explosives.

Workers try to put out a fire at the site of Saturday's bombing of an evacuee convoy in Rashidin, Syria